by Joel Siebentritt
1 Corinthians 3:16
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?
Matthew 18:20
For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.
The Honduran Mission Group sang the following country-gospel refrain as our big green and white bus carried us over the last miles through Tegucigalpa to the airport.
Travlin’ that highway home
I’m travlin’ that highway home
Oh narrows the way, thank God I can say
I’m travlin’ that highway home
-Walter Bailes and Frankie Bailes
It was the end of a short week that seemed much longer. We had been geographically far, far from home; culturally distant from all that was familiar; and, linguistically handicapped. Foreigners in a foreign land. The music and the words comforted me in the same way it had on our long journeys out to the village of La Fuente the previous 4 mornings, and back again each afternoon.
Sometimes when I’m way out of my “comfort zone,” I can also feel spiritually out of touch too…further away from God’s comforting presence…a long way from “home.” Like singing that song, the following passages are reminders to me that those feelings are passing and cannot change the truth that God is ever present in our lives. I can know God’s presence in quiet prayer and meditation. I can know God’s presence in song. And I can know God’s presence through loving fellowship, anywhere, anytime. God is with me. God is with you. God is here. On my daily path to discovering God, I am always travlin’ that highway home.
Prayer: God of all time and space, open my eyes that I may see you, my ears that I may hear you , my mind that I may know you and my heart that I may welcome you, now and always. Amen